‘He is no Tom, Dick or Harry’: HC puts on hold arrest of Yediyurappa in POCSO case

“He is no Tom, Dick or Harry. He is not a bandicoot. He is the former chief minister of the state. Is it your case that he will flee away from the country by going to Delhi? So many things are taking shape in the political arena. He will come back. What is that he will be able to do going to Delhi?,” the high court single judge bench of Justice S Krishna Dixit asked the Advocate General during the course of the hearing.

A special court for POCSO cases had issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Yediyurappa on Thursday after the CID sought his arrest warrant for failing to appear for investigations on June 12 as sought by a notice issued under section 41 A of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Justice Dixit referred to a letter sent to the CID by Yediyurappa on June 12 stating that he was in New Delhi and that he would appear before the investigating officer on June 17, while putting the arrest of the former CM on hold.

In its order, the HC has said that Yediyurappa, 81, is a former CM who is in the evening of his life and having ailments.

Yediyurappa was accused by the mother of a minor girl of sexual assault under Section 8 of the POCSO Act, 2012, and Section 354 A of the Indian Penal Code for sexual harassment.

The incident is alleged to have occurred on February 2, 2024 when the mother and daughter visited the former CM for help in seeking justice in an earlier case of sexual assault on the minor by a relative. A police case was registered on March 14, 2024 in Bengaluru and the case was transferred to the CID for probe on March 15.

The CID argued during the hearing on Friday that Yediyurappa had made himself unavailable for investigation after receiving the notice for appearance before the police on June 11.

The state Advocate General Shashikiran Shetty argued that Yediyurappa was served a notice at 11.30am on June 11 for appearance for investigation but booked a ticket at 5.30pm on the same day and flew to Delhi that night and subsequently on June 12, a letter was sent on to the CID stating that he would make himself available for investigation on June 17.

The CID also argued that the arrest warrant for the ex-CM was issued by a special court after the court was told that Yediyurappa and three others accused in the case had attempted to tamper with evidence and lure witnesses in the case.

Yediyurappa moved the high court close on the heels of the brother of the minor victim in the POCSO case also moving the high court over the slow progress in the probe of the case. The brother of the victim approached the high court on June 10 in the wake of the death of his mother — the original complainant — on May 26.

Yediyurappa has stated in his own petition that the case registered against him on the basis of a complaint by the mother of a teenage girl is false and that it should be quashed.

“There is no prima facie material on record which discloses that the petitioner has committed the alleged offence of sexual assault,” states the petition filed by Yediyurappa for quashing of the POCSO case FIR registered against him. The former CM has claimed that the case is politically motivated and that there was over a month’s delay in its filing.

The CID which is investigating the case told the HC that it has gathered evidence of the occurrence of the alleged incident in the course of investigations including the statement of the victim under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code as well as data retrieved from a mobile phone on which the recordings of evidence pertaining to the incident was made.

The CID earlier summoned Yediyurappa on April 12 and he appeared for questioning, and he also provided the voice samples for the investigations. The voice samples of the former chief minister were collected for comparison with voices on a video recorded on a mobile phone by the 54-year-old mother of the victim on the day of the alleged incident.

The 54-year-old mother of the victim who relentlessly pursued justice for her daughter in the POCSO cases involving her daughter died on May 26 this year.

The woman who battled lung cancer nearly eight years ago had been running around for support for justice for an alleged assault that occurred on her minor daughter in 2015 by a close relative of her husband.

She met several police and state officials in an effort to ensure that the perpetrator in the case, which is still under trial, is brought to justice. She also filed as many as 53 complaints against state officials including police officers over the case from 2015.

The former Karnataka CM Yediyurappa has refuted the allegations of sexual harassment and said that he had helped the mother and daughter in the past.

“Around one or one and a half months ago they came to my house seeking help. After listening to her, I called city police commissioner B Dayananda over the phone seeking to address her problem. Later, they spoke against me and I then suspected there was some health problem with her,” Yediyurappa said in a reaction to the FIR in March this year.